Keeping the Web Untangled
by Iscah McKrae
Summary: Jess didn't usually lie, at least according to his own definitions, or Rory's. Occasionally, though, certain things needed to be the truth. Chapter Two: "And people wonder why I don't smile more..." Two-shot Literati. Set in mid Season 3.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: I know. Another one-shot when any of my readers who are still around want me to finish my many WIPs (particularly "Pay the Piper" and "EverFixed Mark"). I can only assure you that they are and always will be my literary children, and as such, I'm not now or ever abandoning them. I know "House Rules" isn't one of my more popular stories, and if you don't like it, I get it. But, I did post two new chapters recently and mostly heard *crickets*. Thank you to those who did read and review, and those who message me occasionally about my other stories. If it weren't for you, I'd seriously wonder if anyone was interested in my writing anymore.**_

_**So, enough whining! You came here for a story. I have no idea where this one came from. Sometimes Jess and Rory just start having random conversations in my head. Hope you like hearing them. ;-D**_

_**Enjoy!**_

The vinyl couch had cracks in it; not so bad that you'd really notice if you weren't looking, or if the inner side of your forearm wasn't getting scratched by them each time your girlfriend leaned into the kiss. Presently, Rory leaned backward, just a little, making the scratch go the other way. Jess ignored the abrasion in favor of pleasanter sensations rushing through him at her nearness. In her eyes was the sense of falling; not of fear but of weightlessness and drifting, like he was looking at the earth from space, the jewel, the swirling oceans, buoyant and carried by nothingness with a heavy hollow awestruck feeling in his lungs and in the pit of his stomach.

Her tapered, soft fingers slipped from where they had tangled in his hair and cupped the side of his face. He leaned into the gentle warmth of it and the corners of her mouth curled upward. Next, her fingertips went exploring, touching the places on his face and neck that caught her interest. The dark spot just beneath his jawline, complaining that he didn't have enough freckles - with her own, they came too thickly for any proper dot-to-dot, and with his...too ridiculously far apart - "Do you even have any others?" He rolled his eyes and refrained from anatomical comments. She fingered the irregularity in his eyebrow, rumpling it back and forth.

He raised it at the peculiarities of her current exploration. It slipped from her finger and as she moved to "catch" it he started raising and lowering both brows quickly dodging her playful forefinger.

"Hold still!" she said in a mock peevish tone that made him laugh - laugh at the whole thing 'cause it was ridiculous playing tag with his eyebrows. Rory started to laugh with him, but got distracted, her intent look half returning with hesitant inquisitiveness. Her hand slid down his face a moment after the intent expression, and he felt the ridges of her fingertip softly along the contour of the misshapen portion of his lower lip.

His smile faded, and with it the oddity in shape.

"Was it that way when you were born?"

The way she said it didn't come across as prying overmuch. After all, these were the kinds of things people usually knew about their boyfriend or girlfriend, right? Normal things. Still, his gaze dodged rebelliously away when he tried to keep looking her in the eye, and his far shoulder shifted as if it wanted to slip off the couch by itself and hide in the closet. It would be easier to say it was a birth defect. And it wasn't likely it would come up in conversation with Luke, but lying inconsistently always comes back to bite you one way or another.

"Nah," he said, more of an audible accessory to the twitching grimace and slight shake of the head. "Stupid accident when I was seven or eight. No big deal." With his free hand, he wiped his eye as he spoke, as if remnants of sleep remained there.

"What happened?" Concern creased the midpoint of her forehead, just above her eyes.

The story had gotten more succinct and believable since he'd told it to Luke when he was nine. "Kid shoved me when we got off at the bus stop, and some moron driver thought it was cool to pass a school bus with its lights flashing."

"You got hit by a car!?" Rory's mouth hung open in shock and he felt worse about the lying. It didn't have the baggage that the truth did, though. The lie wouldn't hurt her or anybody else like the truth would.

"Eh," he shrugged it off, "I just hit the pavement kinda hard. It looked like it was only a scrape, and I didn't usually talk much anyway, so they didn't realize right away it was because I couldn't. I dunno what happened with the driver. I was too out of it." He shrugged again in place of the unnecessary parts of the story. "Jaw was dislocated. Had to drink food through a straw for awhile."

"So did the dislocated jaw damage the nerves, or...?"

He nodded. That part of the story, at least, was true.

"Did you at least get some kind of insurance settlement from the driver who hit you? You'd think they would've ended up in court at least!"

Jess shook his head and shrugged. "Nothing like that, that I know of. But, I was eight," he explained. "Not much makes sense from when I was eight. I mostly remember the drinking food part. Blech!"

Dodging was that easy. Focus on the common human experience, if you can find it. People will believe anything if you add the right details...usually the details that are true and vivid in the senses, even while the rest of the story is fabricated...people buy it. He kept himself from frowning, the telltale that he couldn't stand lying to her about real things.

Usually, he was good at evasions that he knew that she knew were evasions, and it was like winking at her - a silent agreement that she'd accept what was blatantly untrue for the sake of his privacy or his pride...that she wouldn't ask. It was okay. It was like a code. They'd never talked about it, and most people would say he was being some sort of compulsive liar, but that wasn't it. It was like an inside joke. Like the football instead of the swan, or the wake for Louie for Luke that was "Patty's" idea. Things he might tell her someday, but she really knew anyway. Her eyes would flash in a kind of triumph. They told him, "I could MAKE you tell. But, I don't have to. I'm onto you."

He couldn't do that with this. She was asking for honesty. And, ironically, that was what forced him to lie in earnest. Mostly for Luke's sake. If he knew the real story, and all the real stories it would lead to, Luke would honestly, literally wish himself dead. So certain lies had to stay true. Maybe forever.

Thankfully, the topic of liquid food took Rory back to when she was a preteen and had her braces tightened monthly. "Thank God for Luke and Sookie! Without them, I would have eaten nothing but jello and milkshakes for two days every month! Not exactly starvation, I know, but there was no way I could eat blender take-out, which was all Mom could come up with. She burnt up Sookie's blender trying to do it, too!"

"Oh, man!" Jess laughed, relieved that the exploration and interview had come to a close. He even shared some of his own kid-on-a-liquid-diet, crazy horror stories - the apartment sprayed soaked with canned soup, the stomach-churning baby food through a straw, and so forth.

When Luke came up for his every-other-day pocket knife retrieval, he stopped with a stunned but glad look on his face, hearing Rory's laughter and seeing Jess in full story-mode, complete with one-handed, wild gestures. He exhaled a kind of a laugh and didn't bother with the pocket knife.

Better if they didn't particularly notice he'd come in. Better that they stayed happy like they were. He'd never...absolutely never heard Jess just sit and talk like this. Rory beamed like nothing he'd ever seen, despite the semi-gruesome descriptions, like some kind of a shell had fallen away from her, and Jess... Wow, was Rory good for him!

Luke closed the door quietly behind him and came down the stairs with his eyes twinkling.

Lorelai looked half-worried.

"You didn't bring anything down. Why didn't you bring anything down? You might actually manage to keep them on guard if they can't set their watches by you, and you don't keep losing the mustard!"

One corner of his mouth lifted and the twinkling eyes regarded her for half a second while he refilled the napkin dispensers.

"They're fine."

_**A/N: I'd love to hear what you think.**_


	2. Swans and Baseball Bats

She was taking off pearl earrings. He was nibbling at the nape of her neck and slowly pulling down the zipper that ran the length of her spine, set in black satin.

"Well, I _was_ just going to take the jewelry off and go put on an apron, but I guess I could actually change." Her voice weakened at the end of the sentence, as his lips found more delicate skin.

"I thought I could help you slip into something more comfortable," he intoned, his breath warm against her earlobe and his voice like low distant thunder.

Rory exhaled long and released, melting into her husband's button-down dress shirt, and the human firmness and warmth beneath it. Inviting friends back to their place after the bruncheon for movies, etc. has been a spur-of-the-moment thing – one which they were now both regretting...keenly – particularly since Jessica had gone home from the reception the day before with Luke and Lorelai to stay the weekend. Perfect opportunity completely wasted on people they barely knew.

"Can't we call them and cancel?" Rory's tone was a guilty one, but plaintive.

Jess chuckled. "That's supposed to be my line."

"Good God, I'm going to _kill you_..." Rory moaned as his tongue did things to her collarbone that made her knees give way.

"That good, huh?" he teased as the satin hit the floor, leaving her standing there wearing only a pearl strand and a creamy slip.

The teasing stopped and Rory wondered why until she caught a glimpse of Jess' eyes in the mirror. No words could be more eloquent than those eyes. No compliment could encompass the things they told her. The fullness, the depth, the emotion trembling in them turned superlatives into mere dust. She saw him swallow and felt his arms sliding and curling around her waist. The gilded mirror turned them into a portrait that might have hung in the Gilmore mansion, the slip passing for a silken gown.

Smiles were gradual and involuntary and a little dreamlike. The crookedness of Jess' smile was more pronounced in the mirror image. Backwards makes everything more noticeable. She always noticed her freckles more when she looked in two mirrors at once, and her nose always seemed somehow off kilter. But in a mirror, Jess' smile had blinking neon signs pointing to it, even after they'd been married nearly a year. She tried to ignore it and keep appreciating the glow and the portrait, and... The more you try not to notice something...

"Way to ruin a moment," he muttered, smirking, and Rory blushed feeling more than slightly awful. "And people wonder why I don't smile more!" he scoffed lightly, kissing her neck again to show that he wasn't actually offended.

"I didn't..." she protested, trailing off helplessly.

"I know." He squeezed her shoulders affectionately as he turned to start changing his own clothes, moving into the bedroom. "We need to get ready anyway."

She still felt bad.

"Can you hand me my capris and my black and white shirt?"

A few moments later, he stood with a pair of black pants draped over one arm, staring into the closet. "Black and white... black and white..."

"Boat neck. Stripes," she narrowed the field.

"Black and white!" Jess whipped the thin, knit garment from the wardrobe with an alacritous triumph and handed them both to her.

Once Rory had donned her "hostess clothes" as Jess had dubbed them on the spot, she stood in front of the mirror again, pulling the pins out of her hair and letting it fall into the loose waves that came naturally when it had been up and twisted.

"Was it really a bus?" she asked, leaning toward the doorway that separated them.

Jess was pulling off his dress socks, and out of the corner of her eye, Rory saw him freeze and bite his lower lip. He stayed frozen for a moment before responding, "No, it was a swan."

He knew exactly what she meant.

"Jess..." They'd covered a lot of territory while they were dating, and even more in the time they'd been married, but she'd never asked about this one, even though she'd always suspected.

"Baseball bat/swan...swan/baseball bat...same diff." The words were offhanded, casual. The tone was careful. None of the acrid sarcasm. Just muted because he didn't like talking about it, and trying not to cringe because he didn't like her hearing about it.

Her chest cavity ached, but she kept her back turned, pressing her lips together before she dared speak. When she did, her words were tight so her voice wouldn't catch or warble. "One of Liz's boyfriends?"

"Yup." Neither of them was particularly continuing to dress at this point. Just sitting/standing like the boys in the rhyme - _back to back, they faced each other. _She didn't expect him to elaborate. "She kept it by the door...you know...for intruders and what have you. I drove him to fury basically by existing. Stand-in for a rival. Testosterone thing."

"When you were _eight?_"

Jess tipped his head and raised his eyebrows in response, despite having his back to her. After a few seconds he answered with his mouth. "Pretty standard, actually. Boy-type kid equals father, equals woman having had other man – constant reminder of her ex that won't go away. So, you whomp on him in frustration whenever you get the chance - usually when his mom's not around, occasionally when you're three sheets to the wind and she's too high to care, or when she's _not herself._ Anybody feel like changing the subject, 'cause I'm thinking board games."

Rory walked up silently behind him where he was sitting on the bed and slid behind and beside him, wrapping her hands around his shoulder as she leaned in, a sob choked in her chest where it wouldn't hurt anybody. His head hung.

"I don't hide things from you anymore. You know that."

She nodded into his shoulder.

"It's just a really long list." Jess scraped his teeth across his lip and looked down at her half-hidden expression. "And it puts this look on your face."

She ducked away a little further.

"And most of your looks I love, but I've got to admit, this one I'm not too fond of." He pulled up her chin and kissed her lips, which folded in on themselves thoughtfully the moment the kiss ended, but still didn't say anything.

"Apples, Things, Bananagrams, Pente, Dixit...what do you think?"

"I think it really stinks that I didn't believe you...when you said it wasn't a fight with Dean."

Jess looked away momentarily.

"I think that maybe you didn't get believed a lot...and that really stinks...and you'd think that at least your girlfriend would believe you."

He exhaled half derisively but with that same twinge of sadness that tended to inhabit his derisive exhalations. "People usually believed me, but I was usually lying to them," he said distinctly.

"So that they wouldn't know about your mom?"

Jess nodded haphazardly. "So they wouldn't know about my mom, so they wouldn't know about..." he shrugged, "things in general. So they wouldn't..." he trailed off with closing eyes and a bitten back grimace.

"Did Luke ask?" Her eyes were large and looked like they belonged in a china doll's face, blinking when you lay her back and then tipped her forward.

Jess bit his lip and looked up at her from a down turned face.

"About your lip when he saw you after it happened, did he ask?"

"Of course he asked." He grimaced with half of his face and half of a shrug that said, _It's Luke!_

"What did you tell him?" Her expression pressed the question gently.

"The story... The story with falling getting off the bus and getting hit by the car. The story."

Rory nodded.

"If Luke had known-" Jess started defensively.

"He could have helped," Rory interrupted.

"Maybe he could've. But, if Luke had known, number one, he would have blamed himself for letting it happen. He would'a killed himself over it every day of his life. And, number two, he would have gotten me away from Liz, and she wouldn't have had anybody...to take care of her."

"...to take care of her." Rory reiterated the phrase.

"You know." The words were a quiet statement, and his eyes rested on the coverlet.

"I know." She was quiet for a moment and shifted on the bed. "Don't you think Luke would've taken care of her?"

Jess nodded silently for a couple of seconds. "He would've tried." Another couple of beats. "He would've tried, and she would've stopped him." A strange expression played around Jess' mouth without ever settling and staying. "You could fill a library with the things Luke didn't know about...everything. And, honestly...even now...the less he ever finds out, the better."

Rory's forehead wrinkled and her lips parted in confused frustration.

"It's too late to change the things he could've changed. And, if he knows now, he'll go looney-tunes crazy trying to figure out what he could've done, how he didn't know, what more he doesn't know. He'll lay all of it on himself..._all of it._ _You_ tell me you'd wish that on Luke."

"Of course not." There was a _but..._ that Rory left hanging in the air, but Jess looked past it.

"So...as far as Luke's concerned, I was just tossing a football around, okay?" Jess said with an intent gaze that held a smile behind the eyes and hinted around the corners of his mouth.

It reflected despite her objections in the way Rory pursed her lips, casting her eyes away from him momentarily, and returning with a saucy sparkle. "You know, I never bought that for a second."

He nodded, letting his eyes tell her _I know, _releasing a slow sigh as he did so. "You weren't supposed to." He struggled to keep a latent grin from showing through. Certain things always remained unspoken between them – purposely so – and both of them reveled just a little in the proofs that they never needed saying.

"So..." her tone and the lift of her eyebrows subtly shifted the conversation, "Bananagrams."

Jess nodded again, seamlessly following, as he had introduced the current subject to begin with. "Yeah, but this time you don't get to use words from the Swahili dictionary that's propping up dresser's missing table leg."

"The rules say _any available dictionary may be used._ It's in the rules!" Rory smiled triumphantly.

"Being under the dresser makes it _un_available," he countered.

Rory opened her mouth to object, but the sound of the doorbell intercepted. "_Shoot!_"

"Come on, at least _you're dressed!_"

Rory spluttered laughter at him, sitting in his boxers and dress shirt. Her voice turned giddy and mocking. "Just take off your shirt and put on a bow tie. Then _you'll_ be the entertainment!"

She skittered across the room and out the door as he lunged to tickle her and missed only narrowly. "I'll greet our guests while you find your bow tie," she grinned through the narrow gap between door and frame, and stuck out her tongue at his dagger-eyed glare before shutting the door quickly and scuttling down the stairs.

At the base of the stairway, she stopped still, closing her eyes and collecting herself and all the thoughts of baseball bats and swans. A long breath. A smile to greet their guests. A door swinging open wide.

"What took you so long? We were beginning to worry you got lost somewhere!"


End file.
